Tzedakah at home and abroad

With the rise of the Zionist movement in the late nineteenth century, European Jews and the new immigrant communities of North America, gave tzedakah to help settlements in Palestine.  National funds such as Keren Kayemet, Keren Hayesod, and Keren Tel Chai used tzedakah boxes in Jewish communities worldwide to raise money to buy land and build the infrastructure for a Jewish state.  Tzedakah boxes were also used to raise money for local causes in Jewish communities in North America and Europe in the early twentieth century, including:  maternity aid and child welfare, schools, hospitals, and free burial societies.  Larger charitable organizations soon developed as well, such as the Associated Hebrew Charities in Canada – the predecessor to the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies, United Jewish Welfare Fund, and UJA Federation of Greater Toronto – to act as a central pool of funds to support Jews in Toronto and Israel.